(d) The question whether, in the case of Micah, the contemporary of Isaiah, the threatening of the total destruction not only of Samaria (1°*) but also of Jerusalem (3!) was the final word of his prophecy, depends upon the other question, how much of Mic 4ff. is from the pen of Micah himself. In any case we cannot regard as genuine such pas- sages as 41", which anticipate a sudden deliver- ance of besieged Jerusalem ; but it may be possible to reconcile 3" with the prediction of exile and subsequent deliverance contained in 4* 1: 4[51] (on 512) see below, p. 696) and 6%",
(ec) The greatest variety meets us, as might have been expected, in Jeremiah’s expectations as to the future. He lived through the period not only of the decline but of the fall of the nation, with all the attendant terrors, and was a witness of all the vacillations between fear and hope, between unbelieving despair and foolish illusion—a wit- ness, too, whose personal fortunes were very closely intertwined with all this. Considering the state of things, it is only natural that with this prophet, again, threatenings of judgment should occupy the foreground. Sword, famine, and pestilence are the means whereby Jahweh means to destroy the people (14! 8 24! 2918, and very often); the Chaldean invasion introduces them into the land. The total destruction of the city (91°), the deporta- tion of all the inhabitants of Judah (9% 13! 1418> 16% 174; according to 25", the exile will last 70 years), are beheld by the prophet in spirit, and in addition—and here is a new element in the pre- diction—the boundless mockery and scorn of the
ee ee eee ENCE
694 RELIGION OF ISRAEL
RELIGION OF ISRAEL
heathen towards the people abandoned by their God (1818 198 25% 18 268 2918),
But, in spite of all this, Jeremiah teaches his people (18*"-) that neither the threatenings nor the romises of God amount to a decretum absolutwm.*
ay, as the potter can remodel the marred vessel after his pleasure, God can change His threaten- ings and His promises into their opposite, accord- ing to the conduct of a people in each case. Accordingly, Jeremiah too regards his exhorta- tions to repentance, at least for a time, as not absolutely hopeless. By Jahweh’s command (7! and, quite similarly, 267") he takes his stand at one of the gates of the temple, and declares to those who pass through what are the conditions on which they may have a permanent place in the land. But, as time went on, the certainty was more and more borne in upon the prophet’s mind, that all calls to repentance would fall unheeded upon the ears of the hardened people, as in former times all Jahweh’s chastisements had proved in- effectual (5°). Judgment has become an irrevo- cable necessity. To this conviction Jeremiah gives forcible expression in a variety of ways. There is, for instance, the symbolical action of the breaking of an earthen pitcher before the eyes of the chiefs of the people (191*-) ; and, no less telling, there is the repeated declaration that any intercession for the people has been forbidden him by God as wholly useless (71° 1114 14"). Yea, although Moses and Samuel—the most powerful intercessors and de- liverers of the people—should present themselves before God on their behalf, His determination to cast off the people would remain unshaken (15!).
But the strongest evidence of the prophet’s perfect certainty as to the Divine resolution is afforded by 37°%. When the Chaldzeans were compelled temporarily to raise the siege of Jerusalem owing to the advance of Pharaoh-hophra, all Judah broke into a frenzy of joy and imagined itself to be already delivered from all straits and danger. Jeremiah alone did not suffer himself to be de- ceived for a moment, but answered the inquiries of king Zedekiah in the words: ‘Though ye had smitten the whole army of the Chaldeans that fight against you, and there remained but a few wounded men among them, yet should they rise np every man in his tent and burn this city with
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_ The course of events showed the prophet to be right: all his threatenings were fulfilled in the horrors of the long siege, the terrible famine, and the slaughter wrought by the sword of the enemy. But all these judgments are not the conclud- ing stage in God’s ways with Israel. Jeremiah already beholds in spirit the time when Jahweh shall have gathered the dispersed from all lands and brought them back to the sacred soil, to dwell there under the charge of faithful shepherds, and to have henceforward no cause for fear or alarm (Jer 23°F 30%. 18". 3987), And when the wounds of Judah have thus been healed (3017), their plunderers and oppressors fall in turn a prey to plunder and exile (v.15), Moreover, the return of Divine favour extends to all the tribes of Israel, and thus includes also the exiles of the Northern kingdom: 31% (cf. esp. vy.” 9 18.27), In regard to the Judahites, a distinction is drawn between those already de- ported in the year 597 and those that remained in the land with Zedekiah (24"-), The former are like the good figs which Jeremiah saw in a vision ; to them belong all the comforting promises of return and repatriation (v.*), But the others, who correspond to the bad figs, are to fall a prey to the sword, the famine, and the estilence, vet the cruel mockery of all peoples of the earth.